· Reduced nominal inflection with five cases; personal pronouns do not have genitive. Most recognisable case-endings disappeared.

· The verbal system, on the contrary, preserves a remarkable amount of inherited material: present and aorist remained (the latter including reduplicated perfects), as well as the subjunctive and optative, and the voice distinction. Innovations include imperfect with endings from imperfect and optative, and other tenses are formed periphrastically, with a complex system of mood.

Note: Early Proto-Albanian vocabulary relies heavily on Latin loans, and there might be even borrowings from Slavic among the lexicon used. Therefore, the language reflected in the fable cannot predate the Roman Empire, and probably dates to its latest period.